By Robert Bianco
USA TODAY
Thursday, 11/28/02

There is no better show on the air right now than Boomtown.

In the weeks since it premiered as the season's best new series, Boomtown has fulfilled every bit of its enormous promise. Led by film veterans Jon Avnet and Graham Yost and graced with a sterling ensemble, this terrific cop drama has used its ingenious skewed-points-of-view technique to tell ever-more-compelling stories — and create ever-more-exciting episodes.

Part of that excitement comes from Boomtown's reluctance to settle into a storytelling pattern. Like all great, young series, Boomtown is still flexing its creative muscles, still finding new shades in its characters and new ways to expose them. And as proof it offers Sunday's incredible installment, a heartbreaking showcase for Neal McDonough's complex district attorney, David McNorris.

Actually, at first glance, McNorris looks like little more than a typical, good-looking TV politico. But something else is up, and your first clue is in McDonough's piercing eyes, a physical quirk that reflects the character's own ambiguity. Sunday, in an exceptional performance, McDonough lets us see what's going on behind those eyes: fear, anger and a ruthlessness kept in check by guilt.

As usual on Boomtown, Sunday's crime story seems fairly simple. A young woman is found murdered, and the prime suspect is the son of a Hollywood bigwig. Determined to reap the political benefits of managing such a high-profile case, McNorris gets it assigned to L.A.'s two best detectives, Joel Stevens (Donnie Wahlberg) and Bobby Smith (Mykelti Williamson).

Yet the deeper McNorris plunges into the case, the further he gets from the solution — and the more he regrets getting involved. The story twists in ways no one could predict, but it never cheats. The clues are all there for you to see, if you look closely enough.

For all the surprises, however, the episode isn't just about twists and tricks. It's about destinies and the ways fathers can pass their flaws on to their children. And it tells us that, try as we might, some things can't be fixed.

The show again proves that skipping around in time, space and viewpoints is more than a great way to shake up the cop-show template. By breaking up TV's normal linear format, Boomtown forces you to see life as it often happens: random, disconnected scenes that must be searched for meaning.

The format also has allowed the writers to make room for character development that might otherwise be lost. Boomtown is designed to stop for a moment and show us why a detective is haunted by a friend's death or how a cop's life was influenced by a TV hero. (That episode, by the way, featured a stunningly brave performance by Joe Penny as a washed-up actor.)

Never mind the "best new show" label. Boomtown might be TV's best show, period — from every viewpoint.

Originally appeared at: USA Today.com